Doom - 27 years of Doom

In 1993 Doom was released for MS-DOS and changed the way we saw shooter games. Today, 27 years and multiple sequels later, a whole new generation of gamers are playing the brand new Doom Eternal (2020). In the first-person shooter Doom games we step into the shoes of an unnamed space marine, referred to by fans simply as Doomguy, as he fights his way through hordes of accidentally released undead and demons of hell. To succeed with this daunting task, Doomguy equips himself with everything from jetpacks and chainsaws to the trademark BFG, or Big F***ing Gun.

Doom is considered to be one of the first modern first-person shooter games, and several of the installations have helped shape the future of the FPS genre. The ever popular franchise has spawned several movie adaptations, comic books, board games, novels and toys. Since the initial release of Doom, the series have sold over 10 million game copies worldwide. Thanks to its graphic violence, blood and gore, and satanic imagery, the franchise has been in the spotlight of many considerable controversies. Let’s take a closer look at Doom!

The storyline of the Doom games

Everyone sitting down with a Doom game thinks it’s straight forward enough; grab all the guns you can carry and shoot everything that moves. But the games actually do have a surprisingly more involved and complex story than many expect. The fragments of storyline available for players are often revealed through minor cutscenes and/or text documents found throughout the games, making the narrative difficult and easy to miss. Add to that a multitude of spinoff games and a main character who frequently teleports from space to hell to earth and back and you have a quite difficult story to follow!

In every single Doom game, the main character is an unnamed space marine referred to as The Slayer, or Doomguy. Some fans claim that we follow the same main character throughout the whole main series, but this is neither confirmed nor denied. Our hero is imprisoned on Mars after assaulting an officer and refusing to open fire on civilians. Shortly after, a top secret experiment in interdimensional travel goes terribly wrong when a portal to hell is accidentally opened. Demons swarm the space station, and later earth, and kill everything in sight. But the victims usually don’t stay dead for long, littering Mars and nearby space ships and stations with undead. The task falls on Doomguy to save humanity from the rampaging hordes of hell and discover the truth about the secret experiments. Without spoiling too much we can easily say that Doomguy's path quite literally takes him to hell and back.

The Doom franchise

Since the release of the first game back in 1993, the Doom franchise has sold more than 10 million games worldwide.The franchise has spawned 7 games in the main series, accompanied by several spinoff installments. Several of the games have gotten both expansions and DLC (downloadable content) with extra missions.

Doom, the main series:

   • Doom (1993)
   • Doom II: Hell on Earth (1994)
   • Doom 3 (2004)
   • Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil (2005)
   • Doom 3: BFG Edition (2012)
   • Doom (2016)
   • Doom Eternal (2020)

Doom, spinoff series:

   • Doom 2D (1996) (Unofficial release)
   • Final Doom (1996)
   • Doom 64 (1997)
   • Doom RPG (2005)
   • Doom Resurrection (2009)
   • Doom II RPG (2009)
   • Doom Pinball (2016)
   • Doom VFR (2017)


The series started out in the MS-DOS format, and have since moved on through almost all imaginable platforms, including VR, mobile and the latest console generations. It is a best-seller in many countries around the world. (For more information about gaming in Sweden, visit https://svenskaspelsajter.org/)

Doom games available for MS-DOS

The two first Doom games were originally released for MS-DOS. The original Doom was released in 1993, solely for MS-DOS, and thanks to its huge popularity the sequel, Doom II: Hell on Earth was released in 1994. Prikol Software released an unofficial special version of the first game called Doom 2D in 1996. Essentially, Doom 2D is just the original game, translated into an arcade shooter-like two-dimensional side-scroller. While released on MS-DOS, Doom 2D initially only appeared with Russian language. Later on a free English version appeared on the internet.